BEIJING — China is experiencing unusual chills this winter with its national average temperature hitting the lowest in 28 years, and snow and ice have closed highways, canceled flights, stranded tourists and knocked out power in several provinces.

China has a four-tier color-coded snow warning system: red, orange, yellow and blue, red being the most serious.

By 10 a.m. on Sunday, the capital had received an average daily precipitation of over 58 mm, a post-1951 record for the city during China’s Nov.-March winter period, according to the Beijing Meteorological Center.

BEIJING, Sep. 6 (Xinhuanet) — The start of winter might be several months away, but northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has already experienced its first early snowfall of the year, with up to 10 centimeters falling across the region.

Arctic air and record snow falls gripped the northern hemisphere yesterday, inflicting hardship and havoc from China, across Russia to Western Europe and over the US plains.

There were few precedents for the global sweep of extreme cold and ice that killed dozens in India, paralysed life in Beijing and threatened the Florida orange crop. Chicagoans sheltered from a potentially killer freeze, Paris endured sunny Siberian cold, Italy dug itself out of snowdrifts and Poland counted at least 13 deaths in record low temperatures of about minus 25C (-13F).